


We'll Be Home for Christmas

by monicawoe



Category: Preacher (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 07:29:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8968342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monicawoe/pseuds/monicawoe
Summary: Christmas in Annville: then and now (Tulip POV)





	

**Author's Note:**

> written for Reykath for the Preacher Secret Santa exchange on tumblr!

Tulip paused, took a deep breath and one painfully slow step, shifting her weight carefully from her heels to her toes, to keep the floorboard from creaking. She'd considered jumping over the traitorous patch of floor, but that'd be even more likely to wake the sleepers.

The wood felt cool under her bare feet, more so as she passed by the front door. Maybe it'd snowed. She stopped to peek through the peephole and squinted until she could see the ground. It _had_ snowed. Not much, but enough to make everything look powdered-sugar dusted.

She hoped it'd keep snowing 'til there was a nice thick layer outside, covering everything like vanilla frosting. Her ma, since she could remember, had talked about snow every winter, like it was the most miraculous thing in the world, like it was more magical than Santa coming down a chimney. Course, Tulip had figured out Santa was a lie the same year her ma had been locked up.

Magic wasn't real. Santa wasn't real. Justice sure as heck wasn't real. And she was pretty sure Jesus and God Almighty himself weren't real neither, but she wasn't about to say that out loud. Certainly not to anyone in _this_ house.

The tree did look magical though, more so now, just before dawn, than it had the night before. The ornaments glittered in the glow of the strung up electric lights, and there were stacks of gifts underneath the tree. Stacks!

The angel Jesse had put up on top didn't even look crooked now, more like it was trying to fly away. Which seemed right for an angel. Why would it want to stay stuck on a tree anyway? If she had wings, Tulip decided, she'd never stay anywhere for more than a few hours.

Though maybe that wasn't true after all. Maybe she liked it here. But she knew it wouldn't last. Good Things never lasted. Not in her experience.

Jesse and his dad were good to her. She wasn't quite sure why, except maybe they were just good people. Well Jesse was, anyway, she was sure about that. He made her laugh, and didn't tease her the way other kids did, 'bout her looks, or her sorry excuse for a family. Not that it was their fault. Her ma was the best, but the people she dealt with every day were horrible; she'd done what she'd had to do, and paid the price. Walter was nice enough, when he wasn't drunk off his ass. Tulip's dad--he'd been great, once too.

The tree-skirt felt like a border she shouldn't cross, so Tulip stayed just on the other side, toes brushing against it, feet firmly on the wood, leaning over and squinting a bit until she could make out the names written on the gifts better. There were one...two... _three_ of them with her name on it.

The two little packages she'd been holding crinkled in her grip as she tried to find a spot for them. She'd wrapped them in leftover church leaflet paper, decorated in crayon with Christmas trees and candy canes. One gift for Jesse, one for his Dad.

Carefully, she set the gifts in between the other piles of presents, making sure the names were facing forward. She had to kneel on the tree-skirt to get them just right. Tulip stifled a yawn, squeezing her eyes open and shut. She should head back to Jesse's room--tonight they'd agreed she should sleep in there to give "Santa" privacy. Even though she'd protested, and said she'd just turn around on the couch. But anyways, she ought to get back to Jesse's room before he woke up, or worse, before his dad woke up.

But the tree-skirt was warm, and it felt cozy under the lights. It'd be alright if she just sat here for a little longer.

She looked up at the tree, started counting the different colors -- red and blue and green and yellow, her eyelids heavier with every number.

#

"Why're you sleeping out, here Tulip?" Jesse asked. Tulip jerked awake and looked up at him, feeling instantly guilty. But he didn't even sound annoyed. In fact, he was giggling, grinning ear to ear. "How was the sleigh ride?"

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

Tulip sat up and crossed her arms over her chest. "Santa ain't real."

"Whatever. Presents are real enough. Anyways, Dad hates Santa. Every year, _every single year_ he spends a good twenty minutes during the service saying how Christmas has nothing to do with any of that: reindeer, Christmas trees, presents. And that we shouldn't forget what it's really about."

"Lemme guess: Jesus?"

"Who else? Dad loves to take the fun out of everything," Jesse added, conspiratorially. "Nothing wrong with Santa, if you ask me."

"I dunno. What's the point in lying to your kids when they're only gonna figure it out and then get mad at you on account of the lying?"

Jesse blew a strand of hair away from his forehead. "Well, it ain't a bad lie. It's like...they trick us, so it all seems—I don't know...more magical or something."

"Magic ain't real."

"Miracles are real," Jesse said, "and that's sorta the same thing."

"Miracles, like what?"

"Like Jesus turning water into wine or making fish out of thin air."

"Why would you want wine anyway? Stuff tastes like sour grapes."

"Yeah, I don't know."

Jesse sidled up next to her, lifted his blanket so she could share. Tulip grabbed the edge of the blanket and wrapped it around her shoulder.

"It's about home," Jesse said.

"What is?"

"Christmas. It's about home and family and--and hope."

"They didn't have a home."

Jesse blinked at her.

"Jesus, Mary, Joseph. They didn't have a home, remember?"

"Well, yeah. But they found one kinda, in that manger."

"They stayed in a barn overnight because the innkeeper wouldn't let them use a bed. That ain't a home, that's the world's worst motel."

"You're right. But at least they had each other. That's what counts, right? It's like they say—home is where the heart is."

Tulip shrugged. "I guess."

Jesse's cheeks flushed, dark enough for her to see in the dim, yellow light. "I--I just meant..it hasn't felt like home here since Mom..." He chewed on his lip. "But now, with you here, it feels like home again."

Tulip tried to think of a response, but it all sounded too mean, so instead she just leaned her head on Jesse's shoulder. Jesse's place didn't feel like home, not really. It did feel like a sanctuary, but churches were supposed to. It didn't feel like home, but it wasn't all that bad. Better than Christmas last year, anyways.

#

"Come on, lass! I can't figure this one out on my own." A hand nudged Tulip's shoulder. "Need you to wake up now, okay?"

Tulip blinked up at the ceiling--the dingy, water-stained ceiling of the ratty motel they'd been staying at. Cassidy was hovering over her, hair standing every which way. He looked more of a mess than usual.

"We lost Jesse." Cassidy ran a hand through his unruly mop, leaving it even more disheveled. "I don't know how, but we lost him."

"We didn't lose him. Don't be stupid." Tulip stifled a yawn and sat up, looking around the room. "He was with us last night. You just can't remember." Her head throbbed with a hangover; she remembered downing aspirin and water, but not enough. Clearly not enough.

"Ah yeah, last night's a bit of a blur, but--"

"He probably just took off."

"Took off? Without a goodbye, or a note or a bloody _thanks for the memories_?"

"Not like he hasn't high-tailed it before when things got too hard for him." Tulip scoffed.

"Dunno, he seemed fine to me last night. Drinking, laughing, light on his feet--"

"He broke a pool cue over that big guy's head!"

"Well yeah, but—to be fair, it was our table the big guy fell on."

"Cause you shoved him!"

"I--I didn't shove him just cause I felt like it."

"Really?"

"He made a lewd comment."

Tulip stared at Cass, unwavering.

"About you."

Tulip snorted. "Who hasn't?"

"Don't mean it's right."

"It ain't right, but if I went around beating up everybody who cat-called me, half the bozos in this country'd have broken noses and busted balls."

"So what—we're supposed to let them walk all over us, eh?"

"Sometimes you gotta walk away, save your strength for the fights that matter."

"Walk away, huh? No wonder you an' padre get along so well. Stuff gets hard, you just run away."

"I said walk away. There's a difference. I never run away!" Tulip put her hand on Cassidy's chest and gave him a shove with her fingertips, sending him teetering back a step. "Not when it matters. That's when you fight. When you stand your ground."

"Well Jesse didn't. He just hightailed it away from us, heartless coward."

But he wasn't heartless, Tulip thought. Even if he liked to think he was. He was the one who was always going on about love and family and home. Even back when they were kids sitting under a shining tree. Tulip cocked her head, as something clicked into place. "I know where he went."

#

"Why here? There's nothing left of this shite-hole." Cassidy chuckled. "Not even the shite-hole."

"Because this shit-hole was his home." Tulip turned off the engine. Her instincts had been right, as usual.

Jesse was exactly where she knew he'd be, sitting on the hood of the piece-of-shit Ford truck he'd lifted from a motel parking lot when a creepy-ass looking dude dressed like a cowboy had come out of nowhere and started shooting at them.

_Jesse had tried using the voice on him. But it hadn't worked. Maybe the shooter was a new kind of angel, or a demon, or something in between. Whatever the case, his gun never seemed to run out of ammo. So they fled. Tulip had a feeling they hadn't seen the last of him._

After that, Jesse had been quiet. Deep in thought and even more brooding than usual, which was both annoying and boring, as far as Tulip was concerned. She'd tried to snap him out of it, even straddled him, straight out of the shower while Cassidy was out getting dinner. But Jesse was in an extra-special kind of funk.

And now he'd come back here, to the ash and rubble filled wasteland that Annville had become--to get into an even deeper funk, or...or he'd come here out of habit.

Tulip strolled up the drive. No snow, no ice, no nothing. Well, not nothing. There was still a heavy coating of dust and rubble in the grass. Next to what was left of the church's little graveyard, was a cross made out of jagged splintered wood with Annville written across its middle. A few of the church notice-board letters has scattered into the drive; somebody had spelled out FU GOD and pushed them deep into the dirt. She scoffed. Nobody lived in this carcass of a town anymore, nobody gave a crap about it back when it still had residents, and yet somebody had been worked up enough about what'd happened to come all the way here and write out their displeasure in big red and black letters.

It wasn't Jesse who'd written it, that much she knew. Even if he'd given up his pointless mission to find God, which he hadn't, he'd never abbreviate 'fuck'. Neither would she, for that matter. She had standards.

"You didn't have to follow me," he said, by way of greeting.

She pulled herself up onto the hood and slid next to him. "Course we did."

"What she said," Cassidy added, holding out two thermoses to them; he had a third clenched under his arm. "We have way, way too much eggnog for two people."

Jesse cocked an eyebrow, "And you think my liver's gonna make all the difference?"

"Damn right it will. I seen what you're capable of imbibing, and lemme tell you, it's bloody impressive." Cassidy pulled himself up the side of the truck and sat cross-legged on the roof of its cab.

Jesse screwed open the thermos and took a sniff. "Jesus. What did you put in here? Rubbing alcohol?"

"Don't know. Whatever we had laying around." Cassidy took a swig and grimaced. "Got a nice kick to it, in my humble opinion."

"Tastes like crap," Tulip said. "Makes your belly warm, though." She kicked her foot against Jesse's, trying to nudge some life into him, but he still looked mopier than Charlie Brown at a football game.

"So...should we be buildin' a nativity out of the splinters and shite?" Cassidy asked. "Isn't this still considered holy ground?"

"Nothing's holy," Jesse said.

"That's the spirit!" Cassidy took another big swing from his thermos.

Tulip scoffed. "I spent my life telling you that, only took God being MIA to make you finally see the light, Halle-frickin-lujah."

Jesse glared at her, but there was no heat in it. Just weary exhaustion on top of sorrow.

"So why're you here then? Other than to sulk, I mean?" Tulip was about done with his attitude.

"Don't know. I guess I--you know earlier this year, I had all these plans for what I'd do Christmas Eve mass, Christmas morning. A big service, a great sermon about family, and how important it is, about how gifts don't matter, it's not what this is about. All this shit--these piles of presents and ads on T.V. telling you you're supposed to give someone a car with a bow on it --who the hell does that anyway?"

"I knew a man once gave his wife a horse with a bow on it," Cassidy said "Nice filly too. The horse I mean."

"What it's about," Jesse continued, ignoring Cassidy, "is faith and hope and family."

"That was lovely, Jesse. Oh look, you've converted me. I'm a true believer! Praise the almightiest of deadbeat dads and his little babe too."

Jesse glared at him. "This was before we knew. I thought maybe I could..." He trailed off and rain his fingers through his hair. "Anyway, doesn't matter what I thought. Ain't an option."

"Well not here, it ain't." Tulip scoffed. "Unless you're preaching to ghosts."

Jesse cocked an eyebrow. "Think there's ghosts here?"

"Why not? Angels are real enough." Cassidy snickered. "Why not ghosts?"

"Whatever happened to the angels, anyway?" Tulip asked.

"No idea." Jesse shrugged his shoulders back and smiled a drunken smile. "They're probably sitting somewhere, eating pine cones and trying to figure out how to work a remote or something."

"The angels were there with eyes so wiiiiide," Cassidy started singing.

"Well, I know I'm not drunk enough for this," Tulip said, and headed to the trunk, grabbing the rum she'd secretly stashed back there for an emergency. And this definitely qualified as an emergency. She brought it back to the truck, poured a generous amount into her own thermos and shared the rest, topping off the other two.

"You're an angel," Cassidy crooned.

"She's way better than the angels." Jesse said, smiling at Tulip. It looked pretty convincing.

"That's actually a pretty low bar," she said.

"Oh wait a minute--wait," Cassidy handed his thermos to Jesse and hopped down to the back of the truck, then onto the ground, heading for Tulip's car. He rummaged around inside and came back a minute later, grinning, with something green dangling from his hand.

He leapt back up into the truck and onto the cab's roof with ease, then sat down cross legged and dangled the piece of mistletoe over Tulip's head.

"And we did sit at sweet Maaaaary's siiiide."

Tulip gave Jesse a chaste kiss as she settled back down next to him, then leaned up and gave Cassidy a kiss on the cheek.

"And look!" Cassidy said, cheeks flushed. He opened his other hand and held out the little faded tree-shaped air freshener. "Now we have a tree!"

Tulip laughed. "That thing's at least eight years old."

"And still green. A Christmas miracle!" Cassidy beamed as he let the little tree dangle on its string.

Tulip pulled out her Zippo, lit it, and held it up behind the tree, "and now we got a star too."

Cassidy cleared his throat and started singing again, "And weeee did sit at sweet Mary's side on Christmas day in the morning. Curoo, curoo, curoo..."


End file.
